


s + f + w + s

by malevon



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-07 17:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14085522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malevon/pseuds/malevon
Summary: Neither of them know what they are doing.





	1. summer

Kharis doesn’t know where he is.

He doesn’t _feel_ like he’s been unconscious for long. When he awakes, it’s with a start, clarity returning to him almost immediately, and he tries to fall into a more comfortable position, but he quickly realizes that he is bound.

His ears are on a swivel, focusing on the rhythmic clicks of boots on wood behind him, and his eyes are scanning everything about his surroundings, trying to get a hold on anything, and then Lea Calaway steps in front of him, and some things start to fall into place.

“Good morning, sunshine!” she crows, and her voice is loud and commanding and obnoxious. She’s taller than Kharis had pictured her, and she looks at him at eye level, something wild in her expression. “You were out longer than I expected. Sorry about that, but I imagine you can forgive me, since I also imagine you were trying to kill me. That must mean I have built up _quite_ the upstanding reputation, no?”

“Where are we?” Kharis asks, wasting no time with her spiel. There are no plans in his head, and that prospect shakes him.

Calaway frowns and sighs dramatically. “Several miles off the coast of Araheim by now. The wind was in my favor, it seems. Lots of things going my way today, wouldn’t you agree, my good man?”

Kharis processes that information. It occurs to him that he is tied to a mast, on a ship, in the middle of the bay—the sudden hyperawareness of the ground moving beneath him makes him sick. He closes his eyes for a moment, breathes, and returns, scanning the outlaw in front of him again, this time with a clearer mind (if he could call it that—he was feeling his brain fill up with the stench of salt and air). 

She has his cloak wrapped round her neck, and it’s much too big for her. Kharis bites his cheek, thinking, and she raises her eyebrows at him, expecting him to say something.

“I’m not going to keep you tied up forever, you know,” she says, and he blinks. “I’ve never taken a hostage before, so this is all pretty new. I may be a world renowned thief, but I’m not cruel. All you have to do is promise not to kill me and tell me what your name is.”

“I can’t promise that,” Kharis says without hesitation, and his mind goes back to the guild. He’d been given three months to clear this out, and the Chief did not take well to deadlines missed. Calaway clucked her tongue. 

“Well. That’s a shame. Can you sail?”

“What?”

“I’d ask if you could swim, because that would sound a lot more threatening, but it’s not really my forte to throw someone overboard. Though I could.” Calaway steps forward, narrowing her sharp eyes. “I overpowered you once, I’ll do it again.”

Kharis swallows. That was embarrassing. She had a point, but he still had no idea how she’d knocked him unconscious the first time.

“Can you sail?” she asks again, and Kharis says nothing, and Calaway grins.

“Well then. If you kill me now, how would you ever return back to land? Did you think about that?”

He didn’t. 

Kharis wants to run his hands through his hair, a nervous tic, but his wrists are bound behind him and he is sick of it.

“So you can’t kill me. Big deal. We’ll have a nice time on the sea for a month or two. I have rations, and if we’re smart about it, we could be out here for a while, hm? As soon as we step back onto land, you can kill me. Or whatever.”

Kharis bites his cheek again, and he can taste a little bit of blood. She has a point. He hates being left to the mercy of a thief, but for some reason, she seems actually genuine in her promise not to kill him—oddly, she seems genuine in everything. Had he not been sent with a task to complete, Kharis toys with the idea that they may have been friends.

He breathes. “Kharis.”

She steps forward again, and Kharis can see the spark in her eyes more clearly now. She raises a hand out of the folds of his cloak and flicks a finger under his chin, and the contact makes him shiver. “Wonderful, Kharis. Welcome aboard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ive written this introduction chapter at least 3 different times in at least 2 different aus. good to know if I ever write something full length with these two I’ll have a good framework for my convergence chapter.


	2. fall

Kharis hates this.

He hates the way the suit chokes him, presses on his neck, the gaudy shoes, the coattails that don’t weigh like his cloak does—it throws off his balance.

“You look like a stick,” Lea says, leaning into his ear. “Loosen up a little bit. You look like you’ve never seen people before.”

“Not these types of people.”

Kharis looks around at the people in the courtyard. There aren’t many Taylvish nobilities here, so his dark skin and pointed ears make him stick out like a sore thumb, not to mention the stiffness he carries himself with as compared to the company he’s surrounded by.

“This is insane,” he points out, glancing over to his companion, who had somehow roped him into pulling off a theft from the actual, literal Vridelan royal family. “Killing someone in the presence of royalty usually doesn’t play out well,” she had told him, and he had to admit she was right. “Neither is stealing from them,” he had shot back, and she quirked her lips.

“Only if you believe it is.”

“I do, Calaway, I do.”

They weave through the crowd in the courtyard in front of the main gates, and Lea flashes the invitation trimmed in gold leaf to the guard manning the entrance—whether she stole it off of another unlucky guest, or fashioned it herself, Kharis doesn’t know—and they enter the actual, literal Vridelan royal grounds.

Kharis is overwhelmed by the flamboyance of the event. The entire ball is being held outside, under an awning the size of the entire merchant’s district in Daemarrel. It takes all he has not to let his jaw hit the floor, but Lea is treating the whole thing as if she’s never lived anywhere but the castle. She’s surprisingly calm about the whole thing, despite that fact that they were about to become enemies to the most powerful people on this side of the continent.

“Having fun yet?” She nudges him with her elbow, and Kharis looks over to her—her hair is in a messy updo that she had fashioned herself, and she wore a sparkling red dress that was such a contrast to her usual loosely flowing attire that it made her look as if she had almost belonged here. 

“Give me a minute, at least. I’m still trying to get used to the fact that this is actually happening.”

“Well, buck up, Crowe. We have company.” She hastily hooks her arm around his, darting her eyes to their left, and Kharis follows—there’s a shorter halfling man approaching them, wearing a suit similar to his, with a little more garnish. He has crinkles at the corners of his eyes a mustache that hides his smile as he walks up.

“Good evening, my lady!” he says jovially, taking Lea’s hand and pressing a light kiss to it. “My name is Colin Aberth. I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure.”

Lea stiffens ever so slightly; Kharis can feel it in the crook of his elbow. “Maryn Fulton. My business partner and I run transactions in the capital,” she says as Kharis shakes the man’s hand, wondering where in his life he went wrong to end up here.

“From Taylvin, I presume?” Aberth asks, and Kharis feels himself redden.

“Yes, sir.”

“What a fine country. Shame how the war fell to them, no?”

“Oh, Mr. Aberth,” Lea cuts in, with no hesitation. “We’d _love_ to discuss the specifics of the war with you later, but we are actually here to discuss important financial matters with the Hawthornes. Such a punctual family, they are, and we wouldn’t want to be late.”

“Oh, of course!” Aberth exclaims, bringing a hand to his face in surprise. “Don’t let me be the reason. I’d love to see the two of you later this evening, then.” His eyes are on Lea the whole while. “Miss Fulton,” he bows slightly as he turns to leave, but he stops to acknowledge Kharis again. “And, sir, I don’t believe I got your name?”

“Kharis Fulton, sir, pleasure,” he spits out without thinking. His fingertips grow chilly with nerves. He wants this man to leave.

“Charmed,” Colin Aberth says, and then he walks away. 

Kharis lets out a breath, and Lea pats him on the arm in congratulation. “You did it, sport!” she says, beaming at him. “You’re not a bad heist man. The name was a nice touch. Are we doing the fake marriage thing now?”

“Are we doing the fake audience-with-the-royal-family thing now?”

“Touché,” Lea says, humming a laugh. In the back of his mind, Kharis can hear that the orchestra has started, though the sound is somewhat lost to the night air, and the fact that he’s still enamored by the intricate floral decorations that take up every lattice around them.

He’s also too busy looking at all of the food set out to notice that Lea still has her arm hooked around his and is practically dragging him to who knows where. There’s food on shiny silver platters and ceramic plates that he’s never even seen before. He feels his stomach threaten to growl.

“Are your legs alright?” Lea hisses, tugging him forward. “Better shape up, we have to dance.”

Kharis turns to look at her and scoffs. “We’re here to _steal_ , Calaway, not join in on the ball.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s part of the stealing, Crowe. It’s called blending in, and you’re already lacking there.”

“Not my fault you wanted to bring me.” 

“Should have killed me when you had the chance, I guess.”

As they speak in hushed tones, Lea places a hand on his shoulder and slips the other into his. Kharis remains stiff.

“Today, Kharis,” she says through grit teeth.

“I’ve never danced before. Not like this, you can’t expect me to know. How do _you_ even know?”

Lea takes Kharis’ hand, the one that isn’t in hers, and puts it on her hip. Kharis hates this. For the second time that evening, he wonders where he went wrong in life to end up here. “I’m a quick learner. A skill you should pick up, because everyone around us is dancing and we’re not.”

Kharis frowns, but obliges, heaving a deep breath through his nose and actually trying not to look like this was his first time on the grounds. He scrutinizes the other pairs around them, starting, tentatively, to move like they are. Then he realizes he’s staring, and he darts his eyes back to Lea. He hates this.

She grins at him. “At least you’re not looking at your feet. That’s an amateur move.”

“I’m practically a professional, then?”

“Sure. I’ll give you that one, Crowe.”

The orchestra falls into an air, and the two criminals fall into a rhythm—it’s not the same rhythm as the band is playing, and their dancing has a strange lope to it that no one else has, but it passes—and when the night is over and somehow, some way, when the two of them return to the ship with stolen goods in hand and no one the wiser, Kharis Crowe feels like maybe he didn’t hate it all so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo
> 
> “kharis frowns but obliges” sums up his entire character after meeting lea tbqh


	3. equinox

Neither of them know what they are doing.

Kharis blinks, thinking hard. A sudden gust of wind over the bow rustles the sails, runs through his hair, interrupts the silence. “What?”

Lea falters. “My name. It’s Maryn. Fulton. Maryn Fulton.” She turns her head, and there’s something her eyes that Kharis can’t quite place. It looks like a lot of emotions. He doesn’t know it, but his mind is already working hard to associate the name with that face he’s grown used to.

He stares for a moment before he realizes she’s eager for a reaction, and Kharis can’t decide on what to do. He’s so terrible with words. 

Instead, he places a stiff, awkward hand on her shoulder, cracking a half grin. “I think I like that better than Calaway, anyway.”

Lea—Maryn, Maryn, Maryn—laughs, quickly swiping the back of her hand over her eyes and brushing his arm off. “Yeah,” she agrees, “me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last two chapters are gonna be my favs


	4. winter

Maryn hates the Advent Court.

It’s stuffy, filthy, and the people that live there often have no moral code. They’re all thieves and murderers, and while _she_ may be a thief, at least she holds herself to some standard. 

However, as she looks around the dank office, searching for the documents planning out this guild’s exploration of the Maw, she can’t help but be reminded of the clutter back in her quarters on the ship. It’s almost familiar; the fact that she even _thought_ about bearing a resemblance to these people makes her pull her lip back in disgust.

She fingers through the stuffed notebooks, glancing over everything quickly to find what she needs; Kharis can only hold a distraction for so long, and she promised she’d be fast. She doesn’t need to promise that, because she’s always fast, but she did anyway.

She finds what she’s looking for under a poorly organized jumble of knives, papers, ink, and other assorted desktop items. It’s a small satchel holding rolled up maps and paperwork, along with some rations that she thinks she’ll take for the ship. It’s a small bag, and she’s able to carry it on one shoulder comfortably; she makes her way back to the door of the small office space, slipping out quietly. 

As she creeps through the small and cramped hallway that leads to the halfling boss’s office, she thinks about the remainder of the plan: she was supposed to go rescue Kharis from playing cards with the bulkier patrons of the bar (a perfect diversion she concocted after teaching him to shuffle cards and how to cheat at shuffling cards), and then they’d run off together into the sunset like the most skewed romance novel of the century. 

The bar smells of alcohol and sweat, and Maryn, as quick as possible, seeks out Kharis’ line of sight. She skirts around the back walls until she finds a spot where she can see him, and she finds eye contact while he’s in the middle of a dealing. He sees her and looks back down inconspicuously, and she can see him smiling that smooth smile and talking to the gamblers he’s drawn, masking the nerves that she knows he’s feeling. 

Maryn takes his nod as an acceptance and makes her way to the front entrance (the back would be too suspicious), holding the bag casually and pacing around the tavern. Honestly, she’s not even sure what card game he’s making them play, so she’s not sure how long she should wait in good conscience before she starts worrying. 

She starts worrying after about ten minutes, but she hasn’t heard any commotion from inside the bar, so maybe the game just ran long. She’s about to walk back up to the door and peek in, when she hears some very, very upset voices, a yell, then another, and the sound of chairs hitting the floor, and she’s about to throw open the door but Kharis does it first.

“Go go go,” he says under his breath hurriedly, grabbing her arm and yanking her forward. Maryn yelps and follows behind, grasping the bag tightly. She doesn’t look over her shoulder as they run, but she can definitely hear the jostle of extremely unhappy patrons.

“What did you _do_?” Maryn asks around heavy breaths. 

It takes Kharis a moment to respond, and he’s slowly starting to lag behind her. “Bad deal, bad deal,” he wheezes, and Maryn notices he has a hand pressed to his side. _Shit._

“Come on, Crowe, keep up,” she says sternly, watching him from the corner of her eye to make sure he doesn’t fall too far behind.

It’s not long before the ship is in sight. Maryn pushes ahead slightly, loping onto the gangplank and hoisting up the anchor as quick as possible. Kharis makes his way up not long after, and Maryn, as she is scrambling up the nets to unfurl the sails, notes that the thugs aren’t far behind him.

“ _Kharis!_ ” she cries through grit teeth, yanking the knots loose. The sails fall with a loud _fwip_ , and at the same instant, Kharis grunts and throws a hand out towards the men, and a massive ice wall manifests on the dock. 

Maryn breathes. There’s a half-beat of silence, during which she questions whether or not they’re safe now, but after the silence is over and the men start yelling curses at them from the dock and the wind starts catching in the sails she’s let down, she knows things are fine, because they always are. 

She finishes letting the sails loose and then hops back down to the main deck, where Kharis is leaning heavily against the railing with a chunk of ice against his side and a soft smile on his face. Impulsively, Maryn jumps into his arms against his surprised “oof”, squeezing him briefly, then pulling away. 

“Well,” she huffs, “that was a lot more stressful than it needed to be.” 

“You think they’ll come after us?” he says, and he’s notably out of breath, and Maryn tuts, moving towards the storage cabin for bandages. 

“Probably. But you know how that goes.” 

He hums contemplatively, and Maryn disappears through the door. The storage cabin is not a place she likes to go. Like the Advent Court, it’s musty, mostly because she refuses to organize it. When she opens the door, there’s a smell of rot, which, oddly enough, reminds her to take the rations out from the bag she stole and throw them in the nearest crate. The bag itself goes on top of a _stack_ of crates. Organization at its finest, truly. 

The bandages are tucked away near a pile of cloth that would be used for emergency sail patchups. She’s never had to use those, and, weirdly, she doesn’t use the bandages that often, which she thinks is just good luck. 

When she comes out to the deck, Kharis is moved up to the helm waiting for her. She tosses him the roll of bandage and takes her place at the wheel, her feet fitting into the boards, worn from hours upon hours of standing in the same spot. 

“So, Kharis,” she starts, a drip of sarcasm floating from her voice. “What went so wrong?” 

He briefly looks up at her from removing his vest, his eyes going back down to his side as he replies, “Like I said, bad deal. They figured me out, but it took them longer than I thought it would.” 

“The people on that island aren’t the smartest.” 

“Hey, Mar, can I ask you something?” he says, and the tone his voice takes on makes Maryn think. It doesn’t sound teasing. She answers tentatively. 

“Yeah?” 

“What are you doing all of this for?” 

She pauses, looking at him. He’s wrapping the bandages around his middle as if he didn’t just ask the most loaded question she’s ever heard. 

“What do you mean?” is the best answer she can come up with. 

“You know. The heists, the fake name, everything.” 

“Why do you ask?” she retorts. She knows that he won’t keep letting her deflect the question. 

“I just—“ he pauses, and Maryn can’t tell if it’s from his wound or from the inability to discern words. “Is it worth it?” 

“Kharis, what are you talking about?” 

“Whatever you’re doing all this for, is it worth it?” 

She purses her lips, occupying herself by focusing on getting the ship as far away from the island as possible, making slight course adjustments. She’s not even sure where they’re headed. Just away. 

“I’m trying to find someone. My dad.” 

Kharis raises an eyebrow, and Maryn bites her lip. She doesn’t like talking about this. It makes her feel like Maryn and not Lea. 

“You’ve been looking for him this whole time?” he asks, and she does not like where this is going. 

“As long as I’ve been doing ‘all of this’, yeah.” 

Kharis looks at her, scrutinizes her, and Maryn feels like a specimen being examined. 

“What about it?” she says in a steely tone, feeling a sort of defensiveness bubble up in her gut. Kharis finishes tying off his bandages and looks up, a nonplussed look in his eyes. 

“I don’t know, Maryn.” 

They fall into a tense silence, the only sound being the cold wind whipping through the sails. Maryn chews on her lip, feeling a bite in her throat, and she lets it worm it’s way out. 

“Do you have a problem with it?” she asks, because she knows he does. 

Kharis levels a cold gaze at her. “Well, if I wasn’t standing here with a bandage around my gut, maybe I’d be a little more supportive. Just not in the mood today, Mar.” 

“If it was your father, wouldn’t _you_ go looking for him?” she asks, her voice rising. She barely perceives his eyes narrowing at her, and he stops leaning against the railing and stands. She’s struck a nerve. 

“No, I wouldn’t, because in my experience when someone leaves and doesn’t come back for almost ten years, they’re not worth looking for.” 

“Well, my father isn’t that person! If it were me, he’d—“ 

“He’d what?” Kharis steps forward, and Maryn puffs out her chest. “Be looking for you, too? Don’t you think if both of you were looking for each other, you’d have crossed paths at least once by now?” 

With every word he spits, she feels the fire under her feet get hotter and hotter, overpowering the chill that Kharis is emanating. “What are you suggesting, huh? That he doesn’t care about me? Just because _your_ father abandoned you doesn’t mean mine did.” 

Maryn almost regrets the words as they come out of her mouth, but she digresses. Kharis steps closer, and Maryn shifts her weight to the balls of her feet, glaring at him at eye level. 

“Maybe so. But maybe this whole thing is pointless, anyway.” 

“Watch yourself, Crowe,” she warns. 

Maryn can see Kharis clench his jaw, and if looks could kill, he would be dead right now. She hardens her gaze, hoping it’s enough to stifle him from going further. It is not. 

“What if he’s dead?” 

Maryn’s punched Kharis before. It’s been months, almost a year, she thinks. 

Her fist connects with his jaw quickly, and he flies backwards, and for the briefest moment Maryn is concerned about his injury, but her anger wins overwhelmingly. 

“You don’t know _anything!_ ” she counters, and the words are like daggers. “Why do you even _stay_ if you’re so miserable?” This question is meant to be a challenge, a sword tipped in poison, but Maryn knows at least part of it is genuine. She ignores that part. 

Kharis sits up, propping himself with one hand and rubbing his jaw with the other. His eyes are narrow, and his mouth is pulled into a thin line. “ _Someone_ has to keep you alive. And I know damn well that it’s not going to be you.” 

“Don’t pull that _shit_ ,” Maryn retorts. She hates this. “I don’t need protection.” 

“And what, you just need to find your father? Have you ever _considered_ that it may be a lost cause?!” 

Maryn clenches her fists, her jaw. She’s not in the mood to say that she has, in fact, considered it. 

“What if he _is_ dead? What then? You spend your life looking for a ghost and end up dead in some back alley because you stuck your nose in the wrong place? Is that what you want?” 

_I don’t have anything else,_ she thinks, but she won’t give him that satisfaction. 

Kharis sighs, and stands with a huff, bringing his hand to his side. He doesn’t look at her. Instead, he turns and heads down from the helm, muttering something about how he would be downstairs, and Maryn is left alone to fight off the stinging in her eyes. 

It doesn’t bother her. 

It doesn’t bother her, much, for a while. She’s still blinded with anger, sitting at the helm with white knuckles around the wheel, her eyes narrowed and leveled at the door that leads down into the quarters. 

She replays every piece of dialogue in her head until the words are rubbed raw. She wants to scream, tear something apart, cry. She tries to tell herself that _he’s not important enough for his words to matter._

_But he is._

It doesn’t bother her until it does. 

What if her father really is dead? Has she wasted the last four, five years of her life? Did she leave her mother alone for no reason? She’s thought about these things before, yes, but she’s always been so caught up in Lea Calaway, the girl who could make anything happen. So caught up that any setback was considered an impossibility. 

Maryn closes her eyes. She hasn’t felt like Lea Calaway in a while, and she doesn’t know what to think when she feels more like Maryn Fulton again. It feels wrong. 

She yawns, her eyelids starting to feel heavy. She glances at the horizon (she’d been staring at it for the past hour—staring at it, but not really seeing it, too lost in her own mind) and sees the pale pinks of sunrise fading in, and wonders if she can afford a quick nap. 

She doesn’t want to sleep at the helm. She’s done it before, and it’s always resulted in terrible cricks in every possible joint when she wakes up. It’s about deciding whether or not she wants to pass by Kharis’ room, or risk being sore for the next three days. 

Maryn huffs, gritting her teeth and going down the stairs. It’s not like she can avoid him forever, anyway. It’s a small ship holding two people. Plus, it’s probably worth it to check and see if he hasn’t bled out and died. 

She slowly cracks open his door when she reaches it. It’s dark, but there’s just enough light from an oil lamp for her to see that he’s asleep, a discarded book on the floor. Maryn purses her lips and considers leaving, feeling weirdly intrusive, but Kharis takes in a full inhale and stirs, looking at her. She bites her lip and walks in, sitting on the floor near the foot of his cot and propping her chin up on the thin mattress that can barely even be called one. A heavy thought weighs on her mind, but she pushes it away. 

They sit in silence for an eternity, Maryn’s eyes wandering around, looking anywhere but at him, before she speaks. “How are you?” she whispers flatly, and Kharis hums, looking like he’s still partly asleep. 

“Not dead. Sore.” 

“Well, that’s good.” 

Maryn feels the pressure, the awkwardness. Why did she even come in here? She could leave. 

“Sorry I punched you,” she says sheepishly, putting her face down for a moment, then turning to face Kharis, who grins. Maryn feels her heart lift slightly. 

“I deserved it. I was being an asshole.” 

Maryn huffs a laugh, not disagreeing. They fall into a quiet that roars in her ears; she can’t just brush this under the rug, and if she’s honest with herself, she knows that Kharis won’t, either. 

As if reading her mind, Kharis prompts, “Is that it? Cause I’m real sleepy, Mar.” 

Maryn looks up at him. The words get caught in her throat, but they come up smoothly, as if she never struggled at all. “Why _do_ you stay?“ she asks around a smile that masks the fact that this has been a question bothering her for the past while. 

“I meant what I said,” Kharis says, not hesitating. “Someone’s gotta keep you alive.” He looks away from her as he says this, one of his ears twitching slightly. Maryn rolls her eyes lightheartedly. 

“Really, Crowe? Don’t give me that shit.” 

“Really! Plus, I mean. Where else do I go, Mar? Who else do I hang around with and expect to get stabbed in the side and get shut away on a ship for weeks at a time?” 

“Oh,” Maryn laughs, lightly punching him in the arm. “Shut up.” 

Another silence. Maryn hates this one less. Kharis sits up, resting his cheek on one hand and placing the other next to hers so that their fingers just barely brush. 

“What will you do after you find him?” Kharis asks, his voice soft and sincere, and Maryn looks up at him, her heart confused and muddled and blurry. The answer to this question has always been the same. 

“Go home.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof


	5. spring

Maryn goes home.

She stares at the old house. She doesn’t associate it with her family anymore, as if looking at a shell, a husk, because that’s all that’s left of it after years of weather wear. The shutters on the front window are torn off, likely thrown over the nearby cliff by some storm. 

The vane on the roof is rusted and creaks a painful noise when the wind blows the wrong way, but the friendly looking koi design is welcoming, if nothing else. The blueberry bush her mother used to tend to is, somehow, still thriving, and there’s even sprouts of other bushes in the surrounding earth.

Maryn takes a breath. It’s been too long. She’s not sure if she’s even worthy of going inside anymore.

She takes another breath. Of course she’s going to go inside.

She turns around to see Kharis idly braiding strands of the long, untended grass and lets out a sharp whistle. His ears perk up and his head follows, and he drops the small plait and trudges through the brush to stand slightly behind her. 

“Come on, I’ll give you the tour,” she says confidently, taking careful steps along the old threshold to get to the door. The planks whimper under their combined weight, but Maryn doesn’t worry about them. They’ve held up all the time, they could wait to break until they left from this place. She didn’t plan on staying long.

Maryn creaks open the door, and is immediately hit with dust invading her nose. She clears her throat a bit, blinking the water from her eyes, and takes it in. The scene hits her like a tidal wave.

Everything is overwhelmingly similar to how she remembers it. The rounded breakfast nook to her left still has that old, unpolished table, with the small stool positioned right next to the window, facing the sea. A breath catches in her throat when she sees it. 

The kitchen is smaller than she remembers. There’s still wood in the brick oven. The stairs leading up to her loft are crooked and broken in some places, but they look to be holding up well enough. The door to her parents’ room is shut. She wants to sit here and take in every small detail, her feet firmly planted in shock. A lump starts to form in her throat, but she swallows it before it can threaten her.

“ _This_ is where you grew up?” Kharis asks from behind her, breaking the silence that has drawn on for too long. She’s thankful for that, but she whips around and lightly slaps him in the chest.

“ _This_ is my childhood home, Kharis,” she snaps, jokingly, feeling some of the weight on her mind disappear. “Be a bit more respectful.”

“Where’s the grand tour I was promised?”

“Ah, yes. Of course,” she says, full of new resolve now that the proverbial ice has been broken. “To our left is the dining room and kitchen. Fully functional oven.” Maryn pauses. “My mother and I used to take blueberries from the bush outside and bake them into bread.”

“What’s upstairs?” Kharis prompts before she can go too far down the rabbit hole of memories.

“That’s my room. Less of a room and more of an upstairs storage space, really, but I was a small kid.”

“You think there’s still stuff up there?” Kharis asks, and cracks a shit-eating grin. “Any embarrassing artifacts from your past?”

Maryn shoots a glare at him, but she’s smiling, too. “Nothing you need to see. Plus, those stairs wouldn’t hold you for a second,” she scoffs, “and probably not even me.”

He huffs a laugh, and they lapse into silence again. It is a valid question, Maryn thinks. She does wonder what’s up there. From what she can remember, it’s just boxes full of things that her father brought back from his trips. Bitterly, she wonders where he even got them from, if he wasn’t the world-renowned explorer she thought him to be, but she shakes the thought.

“What’s in there? More storage?” Kharis asks, and Maryn turns to see him gesturing towards her parents’ room. She shakes her head.

“Honestly, I’ve only been in there a few times. It’s been years.”

“Why don’t we check it out, then? Not like there’s anyone here to stop us.”

Maryn blinks. He’s right, but... _he’s right_. Images of her mother flood her mind, and she tries grasping at them, but they’re like dreams—she can remember broad details, but when she tries to pick out specifics, they slip through her grasp. She wonders where her mother is. She wonders if her mother is alone.

“Mar?”

The lump returns. 

“Yeah, we can go in.”

Maryn leads him into her parents’—her mother’s, mostly—room. It’s stale, bland, a single bed, two nightstands, a closet. The bed is made, the spread tucked tightly into the frame. One nightstand is barren, but the other is full of used up candles and books. Maryn walks in, padding across the wooden floors carefully, as if something would jump out at her any moment. Something drives her movement now, something that she isn’t in control of. She grabs the small journal that sits on top of the stack of thicker books, flipping through it impulsively.

It’s her mother’s handwriting. The lump in her throat is rising, and Maryn doesn’t like it at all.

She scans the first entries. She reaches an entry that is dated the day her father left for the last time. Entries become more and more spaced out after that. She finds the entry dated about a week after she left. That is the last entry.

Maryn reads the three words on the last entry over and over. Every time she reads them, it’s three more punches to her stomach, forcing the lump up in her throat. She brings a hand to her mouth and bits her lip, the tears a split second away from spilling. 

_She left, too._

A sob wrenches its way from her mouth. The journal falls from her hand, and her knees buckle beneath her like pillars of sand. Thousands of thoughts run through her mind, each one screaming over the others, and she can’t pick just one to focus on. Does she tune into the feeling that over half of her life has been spent on the selfish pursuit? The thought that she left her mother just like her father left the both of them? Does she wonder where her mother is now, if she’s even alive? 

Every raging thought causes another sob to break free, and Maryn is only half aware of the hands that are on her shoulders, and she just barely registers the facts that she’s being half lead, half carried out of the room, out of the house.

She is put back down in the grass somewhere. She can hear the ocean crash against the cliffs beneath her, and she continues crying until there are no tears left, which feels like eternity. 

She cannot stop thinking about her mother. Thoughts of what could have become of her rack Maryn’s mind. Did she end up leaving, too? Is she dead? Is she looking for her? Maryn’s been actively making herself difficult to find for years. Maybe her mother died looking for her. The thought almost makes her fall into a fresh set of tears. Her chest is tight, and she feels like she can barely breathe. The journal, somehow, made its way back into her hands, and she clutches at it with white knuckles.

Tentatively, Maryn looks up. Her face has been buried in her hands, and when she emerges, the air is salty and fresh, and it feels wonderful against her flushed cheeks. She sniffles, rubbing at her eyes, and when she turns her head, she sees Kharis sitting cross-legged a few feet away from her. She doesn’t make eye contact with him, but she sees him quirk his lips in something that could be called a smile.

Maryn brings her knees up to her chin, and pulls Kharis’ cloak tighter around her shoulders—when did that get there?—and sniffles again. “Sorry,” she mumbles, and her voice is hoarse. She hears Kharis scoff. 

“Don’t apologize.”

“Okay.”

Maryn tried to think of anything else to say to him, but her mind is completely drained out. She simply pulls the cloak tighter and makes herself smaller, looking out to the sea wistfully.

“We can leave,” Kharis offers, his voice soft. “If you want.”

Maryn considers that. They could leave. They could go back to adventuring and stealing and fighting in bars. But she feels so deflated and tired, she can’t even think about doing anything but sitting in the same spot she is now.

Kharis takes her silence for an answer and sighs, humming. “What do you want to do?”

Maryn tries to think. She does. She’s so tired. “Stay.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Kharis look over to her. “Stay?”

“Just for a night or two. Can we stay here?”

Maryn feels very small when she asks this. Her persona has melted away, and she feels like the young child that sat in the stool by the window, waiting for a glimpse of familiar sails in the harbor. She looks up at Kharis, and he smiles for real when she makes eye contact.

“You’re the captain,” he says, matter-of-factly, and Maryn quirks one side of her mouth. “If that’s your call, then we can go back down to the ship to get supplies.”

“No,” Maryn stops him, and he looks surprised at her sudden resolve. She’s surprised, too. “I want to make bread.”

Kharis laughs, standing, and offers her a hand to help her up. “Well. Don’t let me be the man to stop you.”

.

Maryn does not allow Kharis to be the man to stop her.

When they go back down to the town square, they buy all of the ingredients—Maryn doesn’t steal a thing from any of the vendors, the merchants. She would feel it to be a disservice. Along with the groceries, she invests in a thick blanket, along with some other amenities they would need to spend their time in her old home.

They return to the house on the hill, and Maryn thrusts open the door again with a new vigor, turning her nose up at the dust. By the time they clean out the kitchen enough to make it a functional baking space, it’s dusk, and the both of them are riding on highs borne of a strong feeling of renewal and an excitement for fresh bread.

“So,” Maryn chirps, admiring the clean countertops. She doesn’t quite remember, but she thinks this is what it looked like in the past. “Do you know how to make bread? Because I do not.”

Kharis stammers. “You sent us on all these errands and made us clean for the better part of the day riding on the assumption that I knew how to make bread?”

“I do a lot of things that ride on a lot of assumptions, Crowe.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re lucky that I _do_ , in fact, know how to bake bread.”

“See! Nothing to be worried about.”

Kharis hums mock agreement and starts pouring ingredients into they large bowl that Maryn also bought. She hovers over him as he does this, resting her chin on his shoulder, pacing, and just being generally impatient, before Kharis huffs and turns around to face her.

“Can I help you?” he asks, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. Maryn shakes her head, hiding her hands behind her back sheepishly for a moment, before all but assaulting him with the small handful of flour she was hiding.

He sputters, and Maryn laughs loudly at the sight of him trying to rub flour from his eyes, his dark hair now peppered with white. He starts laughing, too, when he grabs another handful of flour from the bag and throws it at her, but she nimbly dodges most of it.

“ _Kharis!_ ” she scolds in mock offense. “We just cleaned this kitchen and now you’re throwing flour all over it!”

“Oh, you bet I am,” he smirks, grabbing another handful and making another attempt at her life. In good spirits, Maryn allows it to hit her, laughing the whole while.

“Make the bread!”

“You _started_ this!” Kharis shoots back desperately.

Maryn giggles, trying to stifle her laughter. “Okay, okay, but now I am finishing it. I am starving. We should have bought actual food.”

“Now all we have is raw bread. We’ll have to subsist using what we have.”

“ _Raw bread?_ Dough, Kharis?”

“Shut up and let me bake!”

They laugh at each other while Kharis finishes making the dough, and by that point, the sun has completely set. While it rises, Maryn lights a fire in the brick oven, heating up the cold house, and the new warmth makes her yawn. She leans on Kharis’ shoulder, pulling his cloak tighter around her shoulders, which she is just now realizing she has been wearing all day. 

They fall into a peaceful silence for a few minutes, the only sounds being the crackle of the flame in the oven, but then Kharis shifts beneath Maryn’s temple, and he stands in front of her and offers her his hand.

She takes it, going along with whatever he has planned, and Kharis places his free hand on her shoulder. “Remember the ball in the capital?” he asks, and she knows he already knows the answer.

“That was a mess,” Maryn laughs softly, taking awkward steps to fit inside the kitchen that suddenly feels too small.

Kharis starts humming a song, and it’s familiar—it takes a second, but Maryn recognizes it as one of the songs the orchestra played at the ball. The melody is familiar, and she starts humming along with him, and they settle into the learned rhythm of it, the steps, the swells in the music. Kharis twirls her out and back in, and Maryn feels the heavy weight of his cloak billowing out under her. The next while passes like this, in a dream-like state, the only indicator of the passage of time being the slowly rising dough.

Maryn had closed her eyes in the peace of the moment, and when she opens them again, she slightly cranes her neck to look at Kharis, who is already looking down at her with something very stupid looking in his eyes.

“What are you looking at?” Maryn asks, feeling her cheeks warm. He blinks, smiling, and brushes off her question with another twirl. 

Their humming eventually peters out, and they’re left in silence again. Both of them eye the dough, which has only risen slightly. Maryn frowns. 

“‘M so tired,” she drawls, slumping into Kharis’ shoulder. He clicks his tongue, obviously trying to think. 

“We could just try tomorrow.”

“But I’m hungry now.”

“It wouldn’t be ready now even if we wanted it to be, Mar.”

“Mmph,” Maryn whines, melting to the floor in a heap, leaning against the cabinets. “Let’s just try tomorrow then. I’m going to sleep.”

“On the dirty kitchen floor that we did not clean? Wrapped in my cloak?”

“That’s what’s happening, yeah.”

Through her closed eyes, Maryn can hear him pause, sigh, and then shuffle around to sit next to her. She leans her head against Kharis’ shoulder again, offering him half of the cloak to wrap himself in, and he drapes an arm over her, and even though Maryn knows this is just as bad as sleeping at the helm and that she’ll probably wake up with cricks in every joint, it’s comfortable now, and that’s all she cares about as she falls asleep.

She’ll wake up in the morning to the smell of freshly baked bread, and she’ll stand to see a plate set aside for her with blueberries on the side.

.

And still, neither of them know what they are doing. 

But, at the very least, by this point, they have figured out one thing about their lives that they can rely on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it’s been a labor of love and i finished this chapter in a half asleep stupor and the ending isn’t great, but it’s done. hope you enjoyed it, because I sure did.


End file.
